Windows 2000 Messages
The following are new Windows messages that are under consideration for Windows 2000.
1. Smash forehead on keyboard to continue.
2. Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue.
3. Press any key to continue or any other key to quit.
4. Press any key except... no, No, NO, NOT THAT ONE!!!!
5. Press Ctrl-Alt-Del now for IQ Test.
6. Close your eyes and press escape three times.
7. Bad command or file name! Go stand in the corner.
8. This will end your Windows session. Do you want to play another game?
9. Windows message: "Error saving file! Format drive now? (Y/Y)"
10. This is a message from God Gates: "Rebooting the world. Please log off."
11. To "shut down" the system, type WIN.
12. BREAKFAST.SYS halted...Cereal port not responding.
13. COFFEE.SYS missing...Insert cup in cup holder and press any key.
14. CONGRESS.SYS corrupted...Re-boot Washington D.C.? (Y/N)
15. File not found. Should I fake it? (Y/N)
16. Bad or missing mouse. Spank the cat? (Y/N)
17. Runtime Error 6D at 417A:32CF: Incompetent User.
18. Error reading FAT record: Try the SKINNY one? (Y/N)
19. WinErr 16547: LPT1 not found. Use backup. (PAPER&PENCIL.SYS)
20. User Error: replace user.
21. Windows VirusScan 1.0 - "Windows found: Remove it? (Y/N)"
22. Welcome to Microsoft's World - Your Mortgage is Past Due...
23. If you are an artist, you should know that Bill Gates owns you and all your future creations. Doesn't it feel nice to have security?
24. Your hard drive has been scanned and all stolen software titles have been deleted. The police are on the way.

The Bright Side of Y2K
January 1, 2000
Re: Vacation Pay
Dear Valued Employee:
Our records indicate that you have not used any vacation time over the past 100 year(s). As I'm sure you are aware, employees are granted 3 weeks of paid leave per year or pay in lieu of time off. One additional week is granted for every 5 years of service. Please either take 9,400 days off work or notify our office and your next pay check will reflect payment of $ 8,277,432.22 which will include all pay and interest for the past 1,200 months.
Sincerely,
Automated Payroll Processing

Micro and Mini

Micro was a real-time operator and a dedicated multi-user. His broadband protocol made it easy for him to interface with numerous input/output devices, even if it meant time-sharing. One evening he arrived home just as the Sun was crashing, and had parked his Motorola 68000 in the main drive (he had missed the 5100 bus that morning), when he noticed an elegant piece of liveware admiring the daisy wheels in his garden. He though to himself, "She looks user-friendly. I'll see if she'd like an update tonight." He browsed over to her casually, admiring the power of her twin 32 bit floating point processors, and inquired, "How are you, Honeywell?"

"Yes, I am well", she responded, batting her optical fibers engagingly and smoothing her console over her curvilinear functions. Micro settled for a straight line approximation.

"I'm stand-alone tonight", he said. "How about computing a vector to my base address? I'll output a byte to eat and maybe we could get offset later on."

Mini ran a priority process for 2.6 milliseconds, then transmitted 8K, "I've been recently dumped myself and a new page is just what I need to refresh my disk packs. I'll park my machine cycle in your background and meet you inside." She walked off, leaving Micro admiring her solenoids and thinking, "Wow, what a global variable! I wonder if she'd like my firmware?"

They sat down at the process table to a top of form feed of fiche and chips and a bottle of Baudot. Mini was in conversational mode and expanded on ambiguous arguments while Micro gave occasional acknowledgements although, in reality, he was analyzing the shortest and least critical path to her entry point. He finally settled on the old line,

"Would you like to see my benchmark subroutine?", but Mini was again one clock tick ahead. Suddenly, she was up and stripping off her parity bits to reveal the full functionality of her operating system. "Let's get BASIC, you RAM" she said. Micro was loaded by this stage, but his hardware policing module had a processor of its own and was in danger of overflowing its output buffer, a hang-up that Micro had consulted his analyst about. "Core", was all he could say, as she prepared to log him off. Micro soon recovered, however, when she went down on the DEC and opened her device files to reveal her data set ready. He accessed his fully packed root device and was about to start pushing into her CPU stack, when she attempted an escape sequence.

"No, no!" she cried. "You're not shielded!"

"Reset, baby", he replied. "I've been debugged."

"But I haven't got my current loop enabled, and I can't support child processes", she protested.

"Don't run away", he said. "I'll generate an interrupt."

"No!" she squealed. "That's too error prone and I can't abort because of my design philosophy."

But Micro was locked in by this stage and could not be turned off. Mini stopped his thrashing by introducing a voltage spike into his main supply, whereupon he fell over with a head crash and went to sleep. "Computers!" she thought as she compiled herself. "All they ever think of is hex!"

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IN THE BEGINNING

1. In the beginning GOD created the Bit and the Byte. And from those he created the Word.
2. And there were two Bytes in the Word; and nothing else existed. And God separated the One from the Zero; and he saw it was good. 3. And God said - Let the Data be; And so it happened. And God said - Let the Data go to their proper places. And he created floppy disks and hard disks and compact disks.
4. And God said - Let the computers be, so there would be a place to put floppy disks and hard disks and compact disks. Thus God created computers and called them hardware.
5. And there was no Software yet. But God created programs; small and big...
And told them - Go and multiply yourselves and fill all the Memory. 6. And God said - I will create the Programmer; And the Programmer will make new programs and govern over the computers and programs and Data.
7. And God created the Programmer; and put him at Data Center; And God showed the Programmer the Catalog Tree and said You can use all the volumes
and subvolumes but DO NOT USE Windows.
8. And God said - It is not Good for the programmer to be alone. He took a bone from the Programmer's body and created a creature that would look up at the Programmer; and admire the Programmer; and love the things the Programmer does; And God called the creature: the User.
9. And the Programmer and the User were left under the naked DOS and it was Good.
10. But Bill was more subtile than all the other creatures of God. And Bill said to the User - Did God really tell you not to run any programs?

11. And the User answered - God told us that we can use every program and every piece of Data but told us not to run Windows or we will die.
12. And Bill said to the User - How can you talk about something you did not even try. The moment you run Windows you will become equal to God. You will be able to create anything you like by a simple click of your mouse.
13. And the User saw that the fruits of the Windows were nicer and easier to use. And the User saw that any knowledge was useless-since Windows could replace it.
14. So the User installed the Windows on her computer; and said to the Programmer that it was good.
15. And the Programmer immediately started to look for new drivers. And God asked him - What are you looking for? And the Programmer answered - I am looking for new drivers because I can not find them in the DOS. And God said - Who told you need drivers? Did you run Windows? And the Programmer
said - It was Bill who told us to !
16. And God said to Bill - Because of what you did you will be hated by all the creatures. And the User will always be unhappy with you. And you will always sell Windows.
17. And God said to the User - Because of what you did, the Windows will disappoint you and eat up all your Resources; and you will have to use lousy programs; and you will always rely on the Programmers help.
18. And God said to the Programmer - Because you listened to the User you will never be happy. All your programs will have errors and you will have to fix them and fix them to the end of time.
19. And God threw them out of the Data Center and locked the door and secured it with a password.
20. GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT

[ Contributed by Alexander Zorin]

Two engineering students were walking across campus when one said, "Where did you get such a great bike?" The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take what you want. "The second engineer nodded approvingly, "Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have fit."

Comprehending Engineers - Take Two

An architect, an artist and an engineer were discussing whether it was better to spend time with the wife or a mistress. The architect said he enjoyed time with his wife, building a solid foundation for an enduring relationship. The artist said he enjoyed time with his mistress, because of the passion and mystery he found there.

The engineer said, "I like both." "Both?" The engineer, "Yeah. If you have a wife and a mistress, they will each assume you are spending time with the other woman, and you can go to the plant and get some work done."

Comprehending Engineers - Take Three

What's the difference between Engineers and Architects? Engineers build weapons, Architects build targets.

Comprehending Engineers - Take Four

To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.